Is It Worth it? Why Small Businesses Should Make Room For Technology Budgets

According to a 2016surveyof businesses and their upcoming IT budgets, most everyone plans an increase in technology spending. Of all the business size categories, small businesses plan the largest growth, 27 percent, in their IT expenditures. Should your small business get on board with a bigger technology budget? Are you struggling with fear of disruption or poor ROI? Certainly, you're not alone; however, as technology continues to reinvent the commercial world, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can begin to avail themselves of tools to go after market share once locked up by larger enterprises.

As the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. Applying more budget resources to technology this year may be the single best business strategy you can implement in your organization. Here' why.

Improve Operational Applications

Most industries can benefit from integrated operational and administrative applications. When legacy applications can't share information, businesses must provide the human capital to move vital data from one source to the next. The rapid expansion of interoperable enterprise software drops big tools into the hands of nearly any type of business organization. Even legacy applications you wish to keep can often be linked for easier data flow.

Improve Security

Data thieves target SMBs as well as the super-sized businesses, but smaller breaches hardly ever make the headlines. Whether your business network operates on site from your own servers or from the cloud, it's vulnerable without the necessary safeguards. As the complexity of cyber crime grows, so too does your need for data backup and security.

Lower Costs of Infrastructure

An ever larger portion of commercial activity now happens from the cloud. As more and more infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platforms as a service (PaaS) come on line, the lower the cost to use rented infrastructure. Migrating your systems will require budget allocations, but once completed, your business stands to reap the reward of lower annual infrastructure costs going forward.

To Improve IT Availability

The rapidly fossilizing break/fix IT paradigm guarantees tech outages from time to time. While your budget may already plan for these costs, the emerging IT model of instant and constant IT availability transfers the bulk of maintenance issues to vendors and spreads the costs thinly over many customers. Making the move now to IaaS can ultimately chisel a large chunk off your IT budget as you spend less time and fewer resources patching and more time and energy fulfilling your core mission.

Can your company afford IT support? Download this cost calculator to find out.

Migrate to the Cloud

A good cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) application can replace legacy applications with their various limitations. With the standardization of platforms making customizable applications cheap to develop and scalable, small businesses that migrate to the cloud now have the competitive weaponry to compete with much larger enterprises for market share.

Remain Competitive Against Start-Ups

According to Small Business Trends, new small businesses, having none of the baggage of IT technology in the throes of obsolescence, launch with all the lithe and flexible tech advantages from the start. If your older, established organization fails to match their capabilities as they stalk your customers, the fight may well be over before it begins.

The transition from a no-tech world to an all-tech world may be nearing its apex. By adding some beef to the IT budget, your business can position itself to enter the next phase in local, regional and global competition. From greater functionality, security and availability to lower overall costs and future-facing scalability, most small business can benefit by shifting more budget resources to technology.

MotherG is an IT managed services provider that closely monitors our client’s technology, proactively preventing problems while helping them maximize profit and minimize cost. We offer IT support and services to small and medium-sized businesses in chicago. Learn More ›